Aging cats: my gods, that was disgusting

[elfs]

Last night, after I'd drugged, watered, and fed my cat Dinah, she came and sat next to me, climbing quite noisily up the arm of the chair to lean over my shoulder and breathe her "oceanfish and chicken" combo on me. She started to make the oddest sounds, a deep, hacking kind of sneezing sound. "Are you okay?" I asked her. She ignored me and continued what limited grooming she can acheive despite her arthritis.

Later, after Omaha and I had gone to bed, she climbed into bed with us, and again began making that sound. Only this time, it was louder, more pronounced, and it was accompanied by a mixture of coughing and what sounded like gagging. "Is she having trouble breathing?" Omaha asked as I fumbled for the small light on the bedstand next to me.

Dinah was sitting on the bed down by our feet, batting at her own face with her paw. "What's that?" Omaha asked.

"What's what?"

"On her face right there! What is that?"

In the dim light it was difficult but I could see something just next to Dinah's nose, stuck to her face. Omaha grabbed her head and I tried to grasp whatever it was in my fingers. It took three tries, but finally I got it. Dinah let out a soft, high-pitched mewl as I extracted a nine centimeter long blade of grass that was embedded deep in her sinus and down her throat, causing her distress.

Grief, that was disgusting. Even worse, I suspect she ate some grass, threw it up, and one blade went into the wrong pipe on the way up and has been working its way to the point where it was prominent enough for us to get it.

"I guess these monkey paws are good for something, huh?" I told her as Omaha petted her for comfort. She gave me her best old-kitty sneer as we went back to bed.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Wow. How big was that cat? That's an awful lot of paper.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

For a frightened moment, I fixated on this section of text: nine centi - and all my brain could do was finish with pede.

*shudder*

See, it could be worse. My brain already made it so :(

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

So, when will you be exploring the ravages of old age in the yowlerverse? O:}

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Oh, grief, you don't want to know. I've already got one of those written. Human wife, yowler husband. It's set in the current day. She's heard all the jokes-- cradle robber (remember, he still looks like he's about 19), barbed dick, the whole thing. The medical community has come up with a treatment will keep a yowler alive into the seventies, if he or she is wealthy enough to afford the dialysis treatments or is lucky enough to get a transplant. Fabulously rich yowlers, and there are a few, go to Africa to buy voluntarily (wink wink) donated kidneys from their fellow yowlers.

Yeah, my brain already went down this path.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

My son had some kind of pasta noodle up his nose like that once. I think he even giggled when I took it out. But *ick*!

[ewhac.livejournal.com]

A year or so ago, I caught Wilkie eating yarn, so started gently pulling. Seven feet later, I got it all out. Bleah. He's only tried it again once since.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Good grief! Seven feet!? I have to wonder where these cats are keeping all of this.

[ewhac.livejournal.com]

Well, he'd found the end of a skein. He couldn't back it out himself and his tongue kept ratcheting down new material, so he was well on his way to accidentally killing himself.

trinsf has often opined that a brick in a mink stole would be just as fuzzy and attractive and almost as intelligent.